Friday, October 8, 2010

Neil Versel of fiercehealthit.com reports that there have been several severe privacy violations in Texas recently. It's not bad enough that Texas apparently is a hotbed for privacy violations, but one of the major perpetrators is the Texas Department of State Health Services. Not an agency to go about (alleged) wrongdoing in a small way, the TDSHS is selling and giving away information on 27,000,000+ hospital stays since 1999. Free information is anonmized, but according to Versel those willing to pay get all kinds of interesting information.:

DSHS makes public through its website files on more than 200 kinds of information, including individuals' insurance coverage, whether the stay involved placement of a heart stent, sterilization, abortion performed due to rape and any tests or medications delivered while in the hospital.

I suddenly have a morbid curiosity to see what information is available that the doctors didn't tell us from hospital stays over the past decade.

The second big violation was CVS Caremark pharmacies. CVS Caremark has allegedly been over-reaching their authority as required by the FTC when it approved the CVS / Caremark merger and capturing patient data for marketing and other purposes in violation of HIPAA laws. They are also accused of using their position and information to squeeze smaller pharmacies out.

Our last home grown privacy violation is from former state Representative Bill Zedler (R-Arlington). Mr. Zedler used his position to get the medical board records on five doctors. At least two of those doctors contributed to his campaign - the story doesn't say if it was before or after he accessed their records.

People wonder why privacy is important, and why it's important that our personal information be kept under our control. These are the reasons why. People, government agencies, and private corporations are profiting by gathering and selling our data. It's not unrealistic to say that in some cases they know more about us than we know about ourselves. That companies can gather, categorize and analyze personal information without our knowledge or consent and sell it to others not just for a profit - but without compensation to us, is wrong. And that's why privacy and privacy protections are important.

About Me

Herbert (Bert) Knabe Jr. is a blogger specializing in online
security, privacy and intellectual property. He has long been a fan of
Apple computers and occasionally writes on their products. Online since the mid '80s, he has been blogging on a variety of topics
including U.S. policy and online privacy/security since 2005.

He
has twenty years experience in the newspaper industry, initially as a
production artist, then as a computer technician supporting content
producers. This experience gives him a strong understanding of graphic
production for print and web.

Photography has long been a passion
of Bert's, and he was honored to have a photo included in the PDF
version of the 2011 Plus One Collection. He specializes in cell and
smart phone photography.

Bert lives and goes to church in Lubbock, Texas with his wife of twenty+ years and their five children.